A Denver grand jury has indicted the mother of a 3-year-old girl and her boyfriend in the child’s 2007 death after an expert determined the girl was strangled.

Authorities said Angel Ray Montoya, 24, killed Neveah Gallegos while her mother was at work and he was babysitting.

The child’s mother, Miriam Janel Gallegos, 22, left her with him though she knew he had been convicted of child abuse and indecent exposure and that he wasn’t supposed to be around children, according to the indictment.

She helped him stuff Neveah’s body into a trash bag and then a duffel bag, the indictment said.

Police found Neveah’s body covered with debris in the 1100 block of Perry Street on Sept. 24, 2007, after Gallegos reported she had been kidnapped.

“As Montoya left with Neveah in the duffel bag, Gallegos kissed him goodbye and told him she loved him,” according to Gallegos’ 12-page indictment.

Three days before the body was found, Gallegos reported that her child had been kidnapped.

“Gallegos told (police) that she was walking her daughter to Denver Health Medical Center when a white older-model four-door car pulled up and a man in the passenger seat got out, grabbed Neveah, put a rag over her mouth, got back in the car and fled,” the indictment said.

An autopsy found that Neveah had numerous injuries, including internal abdominal bleeding, that were probably caused by physical abuse.

Police suspected Montoya, but a Denver coroner couldn’t determine the cause of death or say for sure she had been killed.

Montoya and Gallegos were held briefly but were released without charges on Oct. 1, 2007. Later in 2007, Montoya was jailed on unrelated charges of failure to register as a sex offender and has remained in the Denver County Jail.

Authorities called in an expert, St. Louis chief medical examiner and professor of pathology Mary Case. They provided her with the coroner’s report, photographs, police reports and microscopic evidence from the autopsy.

Case concluded that Neveah had been asphyxiated though there were no apparent external signs of injury to her neck, according to the indictment.

She based her opinion on injuries to muscles inside the child’s neck. She also found that internal hemorrhaging was caused by “a punch or a kick to the abdomen.”

Case’s determination led to the indictments, said Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.

It was difficult to watch the couple initially walk away without being charged, Morrissey added.

“I saw the couple walking on the streets of Denver not long after . . . but we don’t bring charges unless there is a reasonable chance of conviction.”

Montoya is charged with murder in the first degree and child abuse resulting in death. No bail has been set.

Gallegos is charged with child abuse resulting in death and accessory to a crime.

Police arrested Gallegos on Wednesday as she walked near West Evans Avenue and South Broadway. She is being held in Denver County Jail on $500,000 bond.

“She was surprised, and when I saw her, she was crying,” Denver Division Chief of Investigations Dave Fisher said at a news conference announcing the indictments.

A general assignment reporter for The Denver Post, Tom McGhee has covered business, police, courts, higher education and breaking news. He came to The Post from Albuquerque, N.M., where he worked for a year and a half covering utilities. He began his journalism career in New York City, worked for a pair of community weeklies that covered the west side of Manhattan from 14th Street to 125th Street.

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